


Unnatural

by harmonicanoise



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark, Force Lightning, Grief/Mourning, Lightsabers, Mustafar (Star Wars), Post Episode 3, Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Resurrection, Seduction to the Dark Side, The Dark Side of the Force, idk what else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-22 14:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harmonicanoise/pseuds/harmonicanoise
Summary: Darth Vader has defeated his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi. But in his anger, he killed the only person who had ever truly mattered to him -- his wife, Padme. Now, consumed by grief, Vader is determined to see her rise again...
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Mustafar

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a pretty short story. I wrote this all in an afternoon after getting inspired by the vivid horrors of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. After finishing that book, I thought for a long time about what if would've been like if Anakin could have brought Padme back to life with the Dark Side. What a twisted, sad thing she would be. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn't get the idea out of my mind. I was picturing supernatural horror in space, and I just had to start writing down what was pouring into my head. This is what came out of that.
> 
> Warning: there's a lot of grief and some blood in this, so if you don't want to read that sort of thing, I wouldn't recommend reading this. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Darth Vader stood on the sands of Mustafar, savoring his victory.

The sand burned at his feet, hot and insistent like a lover’s kiss. Obi Wan screamed below him. Even as he burned, Vader could see the tears on his former Master’s face. _You were my brother, Anakin,_ he’d said, _I loved you._ And now he was nothing all. Just burned meat, like all the rest.

 _He was a fool,_ Darth Vader thought. _He never saw my power._ In the end, he’d been no more of a challenge than the children. The Light side could be blinding, he reflected. The Jedi masters had it backwards. The Light Side obscured the truth. Truth hid in the dark, within the grasp of the Sith. In the end, that had been their undoing. For all their talk of clarity, the Jedi had been stumbling around blindly through this war, blind in mind and soul to the power of the Sith.

Darth Vader turned from the charred body of the thing that had once been his mentor, his father, his brother, his friend. _Pathetic,_ he thought. To think he’d once looked up to these blind fools… Hatred gripped his heart in a vice, as thick and hot as the magma swirling all around him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t savor this victory like he had all the others back when he’d been Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker. The words of his master were burned too deep into him; they were a part of him, a part of him that brought him deeper into the Dark Side the more he hated them, the more he cursed his Jedi teachings. Obi-Wan’s screams stopped. Vader didn’t bother to look. He needed to see his wife.

Padme was right where he’d left her, sprawled on the ground where she’d fallen after he’d choked her, a just punishment for bringing his former master to this place. Vader knelt by her side. Her eyes were shut. She was breathing, but only in short bursts that barely moved her chest. “You brought Obi-Wan to kill me,” he told her softly. “Now he is dead.” Padme groaned. Her eyes lolled open. “Ani…” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. The flames of Mustafar danced across her face, spinning patterns in her hair. He took her in his arms, letting his feelings swirl within him, reveling in them. Anakin’s love for her burned as deeply as Vader’s hate. He stroked her face softly, wiping her tears from her eyes. Tears he’d earned, as he’d finally earned her. “I will forgive you, my love. I know it’s not your fault. I was led astray by the Jedi, once, too…”

“No…” she moaned. Anakin shushed her gently, sweeping her hair away from her face. Even like this, she was beautiful, and she was his.

“It’s alright, my love. The Jedi are gone now, and the galaxy is ours. We will rule together, Padme, you and me and our child. In a better world.”

“Anakin-” She gasped, and then she took her last shuddering breath, and she was gone.

“Padme?” Anakin shook her roughly. “Padme, come back to me.” _No, this wasn’t supposed to happen this soon, Sidious was supposed to teach me…_ , He could sense that she was gone but he couldn’t believe it was happening, not after everything he’d done. He’d torn the galaxy apart for her, couldn’t she see that? He’d paid for her life in blood, and all it had done was bring him death. _No no no no no, not yet, not now…_ Anakin looked into the cold white eyes of the stars and reached deep, deep into the Force, pouring all of his pain and grief and suffering into the earth at his feet, feeling it bow to his will, cracking and tumbling all around him. _No no NO NO,_ he thought, and screamed. She was the only thing he’d ever wanted, and now she was dead. Salt tears fell onto her limp body, and Anakin Skywalker thought of his mother.

When he rose, Anakin Skywalker was dead. He’d been gone before, during the fight with Obi-Wan, but now he was finally, truly dead. Darth Vader could feel the truth of that in his bones, in the empty pit where his heart used to be.

Darth Vader gathered Padme in his arms, and brought her aboard the ship that was supposed to take them both to another life, away from this place. That’s what Padme had offered him, before he’d killed her. Life seemed an impossibility to him now. _There is only death in this world,_ he thought, _and pain._ Anakin Skywalker was a fool not to see it, as blind as the Jedi were. As they died, so did he.

Then, a feeling washed over him. An utterly cold, black, familiar feeling… _Master,_ Vader thought.

The Emperor’s ship was lighting down on Mustafar when Vader left his ship, a new, sleek thing covered with a bone-white emblem that Vader didn’t recognize. The Emperor walked slowly from its depths, smooth and still, a shadow that sucked light from the world around him. Vader knelt before the shadow.

“I sensed you were in trouble, my young apprentice,” the Emperor remarked. His features twisted into a grotesque smile. “It appears I was mistaken.”

 _In trouble?_ Vader hid his sneer. _As if Obi-Wan could be a match for me._ It was clear that Sidious had no true grasp of his power. “Yes, Master,” he agreed, ever the obedient servant.

“Yes…” The word seemed to stretch the length of black holes, long and dripping with fiendish glee. “I can feel your victory, my young apprentice. The planet sings of Obi-Wan’s defeat. The Dark Side is strong in you, stronger than I’d ever dreamt. We will rule the galaxy for ever. Rise.”

Darth Vader stood. In his master’s eyes, he saw only flames. There was power in them, power enough to breathe life into the dead.

Sidious seemed to catch the thought. “Your thoughts dwell on Padme.” His face swirled into an agonizing mask of disgust.

“You promised me power over life and death, Master. Padme is dead, but if I could find her in the Force-”

“You would only find a shadow,” Darth Sidious spat. “Your grief makes you weak, boy. Set it aside and join me on the path of true power.”

 _No._ “Death is power, Master.” His lightsaber leapt into his hand, and before he knew it he’d ignited it. The blade seemed to sing in his palm. “You will teach me.”

The shadow threw back his head and laughed. “Put away your Jedi weapon, fool. You cannot best me yet. It will only mean your end.” The blade sung a different tune. _No no no,_ it pulsed. _Your end, not mine._ Darth Vader leveled the saber and leapt.

Sidious cackled all the louder, eyes dripping with feral joy in a face of thousand-year-old leather. Lightning burst from his hands, bright and cold as distant stars. Vader tried to dodge, but it was too late; his master felt him in the Force and pushed him to his knees, grinning and laughing all the while, and Vader felt a thousand knives push into his back, felt his body jolt and shudder against his will. Anger rose like bile in his mouth.

“You don’t know the meaning of power, my apprentice. You arrogant fool.” Knives slammed into Vader’s back. He screamed, and the Dark Side brought him a vision of Padme’s face, cold and white and dripping with tears in his arms, the love he’d fought for burned away at his feet.

When his vision cleared, Darth Sidious was still cackling. Darth Vader would’ve given anything in that moment to tear his glowing eyes from his sockets, feel his head crunch beneath his fist, taste the sizzling smell of flesh against his saber as this shadow melted away to nothing.

“What a disappointment,” Sidious snarled. His smile was gone. “You could have ruled the galaxy at my side. But you chose weakness.”

More lightning. Vader shrieked, the pain mounting. He saw Padme again, clearly now, alone and scared and crying, telling him, _Ani, I’m pregnant._

 _You were the chosen one,_ Obi-Wan whispered. _You were my brother, Anakin._

“You can never bring her back,” Sidious murmured, and grinned. “You destroyed her.” The Dark Side came to him in a rush, wrapping around him, forcing him to his feet even as lightning sliced through his skin. “No,” he hissed, his teeth gritted tightly together - “NO!” And the planet bent to his will, sending his master flying and crashing into an undignified landing. “NO!” he screamed, and his saber flew from his hands and flew, soaring into the throat of the shadow. Blue plasma burned, and old, wrinkled flesh melted around it. Sidious let out a high, unearthly wail. His eyes were so huge, Vader thought, they seemed to consume half his face. They were fire melting away the skin that wrinkled and folded over his ancient, pitted skull. They were burning him alive.

Darth Sidious shrieked, and then he was an old man, and then he was nothing.

Darth Vader stood, panting, and thought, _What have I done?_

The Shadow had nothing for him now. He had never truly had anything to offer. _The power to cheat death,_ Sidious had told him, _Only one has achieved. Together, we will uncover the secret._ Tears streamed down Vader’s face. Thanks to his anger, Padme was now well and truly dead. The child they would bring into the world was gone. His friends, his family, everyone he had ever known was no more.

But not, Vader discovered with some surprise, Anakin Skywalker. These were his tears, too. Vader clenched his fists and drove away the thought. _No. Anakin Skywalker is dead._ He stood, and still weeping, went to his wife. She was still there on the ship, lovely even in the harsh fluorescent lights that shone above them. “I’m going to bring you back,” he promised her. “I will have what I fought for.” Padme, of course, made no answer. He could still see tear tracks on her cheeks, shining like precious silver. “You are all I have now, my love. I will bring you back myself.” It wasn’t a wish, it was a promise.


	2. The Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darth Sidious held the key to the secrets of life and death. Now he is dead. Alone and grieving, Darth Vader hopes that the beating heart of the Dark Side -- the Sith Temple -- will give him the power he needs to raise his wife from the dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: It gets pretty graphic from here. There's some references to miscarriage and grief.
> 
> Thought I'd post both of my chapters in one go because this story is so short. I tried to make this as terrifying as I could, so here you go, this is what fell out of my screwed-up head. Sorry in advance :)

Lightning flickered and crashed in the skies above where Darth Vader stood, watching. His robes, black as night, whipped roughly against his skin. Vader took a deep breath, in, out, and closed his eyes. Yes, he could feel the hatred in this planet, flowing in waves from the black ziggurat that rose before him, clad all in red and shadow. _The heart of the planet,_ he thought, _and the heart of the Sith._

His wife floated next to him, pale, more stunning in death than she had ever been in life. Her dark hair flowed in waves from her shoulders, twitching in the wind. Her skin was a smooth, lovely white like cream, her legs long and graceful under the simple white shift she wore. She was suspended on a floating medical bed that rocked gently at his side. With a twitch of the Force, Vader made it still.

The Temple was a huge, seamless chunk of stone that rose like a grasping black fist from the dirt of its planet. Its sides were cut into long, sloping corners chased with thin strips of red that seemed to glow like eyes in the distance. It felt like the Temple was watching him, and it _knew_.

Vader looked over to his wife. The lightning cast a dull shine over everything. Her skin seemed to shine, her mouth to twitch in the moving light. He took her hand. They walked together into the yawning mouth of the ziggurat, swallowed by darkness. When they entered, the Dark Side swirled at them both with cold, grasping fingers. Vader accepted them gratefully. This was the place, he thought. The place where his wife would rise again. All of the secrets of the Dark Side lived here, with the cold spirits of the Sith. And now they were his.

Walls rose endlessly up above them, walls that echoed their every step in sounds like mocking laughter or jolting sobs. Padme floated silently beside him all the while, a ghost clad all in white with pale flower petals in her hair. The flowers were one of the Naboo’s funeral rites: Life plucked from the buds of a flower that only bloomed in the dark, under the light of the stark white moon.

Darkness covered everything. Vader had to feel his way through the long, straight halls with the Force, trusting his instincts to guide him to where he needed to go. Every once in a while, he thought he heard voices: sobs, screams, groans - and then just as soon, they were gone.

Vader stopped suddenly; he could feel in the Force that there were doors in front of him. What he was here for, he felt, must be behind them. With a simple tug of his mind, the doors opened. Flames flickered to life into braziers surrounding him, and Vader had to shield his eyes against the sudden brightness.

He stepped inside. He appeared to be standing in some sort of huge chamber, lit by the light of flickering torches in sconces all around the walls. The room was vast; the ceiling soared miles above Vader into absolute shadow. The floor was mirrored black tile so clear he could see his face, warped by torchlight, reflected in it. Padme was no more than a wisp of white at his side.

A rough stone altar stood in the center of the room. Behind it rose a chair of black stone, shining like the edge of a sword several paces beyond it. _A throne,_ Vader thought. He put a hand on the altar, reaching into it with the Force. This was a place of life, he felt, and death. He tilted his head, and heard screams. The death throes of the Light Side of the Force echoed through the stone. _This was a place of sacrifice,_ he realized. _Jedi were killed here, as sacrifices._ A place of Light and Dark, Death and Life… It was perfect.

He laid Padme onto the altar, offering sweet, hushed words to her all the while. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. He cupped her face, sliding a thumb down her cheek where tears had once fallen, hot and wet and _his_ . “I love you. You and me and the child, we’ll rule the galaxy together, or we’ll run away, like we always dreamed of.” Tears were falling down his own face now. These were Anakin’s tears, not Darth Vader’s, he thought. “We’ll go back to Naboo, in that grassy place where we fell in love, and we’ll raise her there, our little girl. I always said it was going to be a girl, remember? And you always told me I’d be wrong.” Anakin was well and truly back now, smiling, rising underneath all of this darkness into the Light. For a moment, he grieved the deaths of all the Jedi, wondering who they might have been. He looked toward his wife and kissed her, once, gently on the cheek. She was cold, and dead. Her lips, surreally red against her pale, pale skin, seemed to smile. _You never loved me,_ they seemed to say, mocking him. _You killed me. Death is the only power you have, my love_.

The Dark Side swelled in him again in a gasp of anguish, and Anakin Skywalker slid into Darth Vader, cold, brutal, hateful. He placed his hands upon his wife, and reached inside her with the Force. He’d probed her feelings before, but this was something more intimate than he’d ever experienced with anyone, even with his old master Obi-Wan. He felt the cold, still heart that lay silent under her skin, the lungs that stood black and broken, the smile that lay blood-red against the marble whiteness of her cheeks. He felt the echoes of all of the thoughts and feelings she’d ever felt, and handled them like precious, shining jewels slipping through his fingers, probing ever deeper into the Force.

His love and his anger met and became one. The ghostly hands of a thousand Sith reached into him then. “Darth Plageis,” Vader said then, searching for the words - “Give me the power of life and death.” The ghosts of the Sith hissed in agreement in his ears. Vader’s hand moved onto Padme’s, feeling for her pulse, willing it to beat. _You are mine,_ he seethed, _Your life is not over yet._ He forced the black blood to move through her veins, the heart to beat, the eyes to flutter open, slowly. _Rise,_ he commanded, _And live_ . The Dark Side poured into him like water into a sieve, through him, in him, all of him and now all of _her_ , cold hatred forcing her teeth apart and pushing air into her lungs, forcing her to _rise, rise, rise_ and accept her destiny, and his.

Vader let go. Padme took a long, shuddering breath, and awoke.

 _Ani,_ she said in the Force. _Where am I? It’s so dark._

 _Alive,_ Vader thought, dumbfounded. _She’s alive._

 _Ani, I’m scared._ That red, mocking mouth quivered. _Hold me._

But when Padme’s hands reached around his neck and brought him close, her skin was cold, and her eyes were fire. She had been animated the Force, yes, she was more _alive_ than she had ever been, but she was changed. Hate burned in her heart now where before there had been love. Vader stepped away. She was like him now, simultaneously consumed by fire and empty because of it. But he could sense she was more. When she spoke, her voice was the sound of the Dark Side itself, tectonic plates scraping beneath the surface of the planet, the searing screams that had been Obi-Wan’s last words, the lava that had burned the soles of his feet that wretched day. She didn’t say _I love you, Ani_ or _Thank you, I love you love you love you the most, I am yours._ She only said _Stop please make it stop I’m sorry I’m sorry._ Her body shuddered, cold under his hands, and when he pulled away she screamed. Rocks rained all around them, shattering to the floor. The earth cried out with the instrument of its destruction, cracking and splintering above them. And in that scream, Vader heard _You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you._ Padme’s hands hooked into claws and beat a savage rhythm against the stone altar, life given on a place of sacrifice, snarling, a wild animal caught in a trap, burning, screaming her way into life like an infant forced from its mother.

Vader burned with her. Her eyes were exploding stars of hate, and as she hated, so did he. He hated this new life he’d created. It felt more like death, the true and final death of everything that he’d loved. She screamed once more, and her body thrusted, convulsed into the air, as if she were giving birth a second time. _Our child_ , he thought. _Our child, it’s…_ Blood pooled between her legs, a flood of it, hot and thick and black. Vader screamed, and in his anger tears streaked down his face, hot tears like the sting of ash and flame, Mustafarian lava. “Our child is dead,” he screamed through gritted teeth. “BECAUSE OF YOU!” Obi-Wan did this, Vader didn’t know how but he had, he had done something to her, he was always jealous of his power, it was always Obi-Wan, always the Jedi, even the dead…

And all of a sudden-

Padme lay still.

Her eyes were as dark and empty as endless space. She wasn’t Padme anymore.

 _Darth Vader_ , the Dark Side rasped with her voice. _Kneel_.

He knelt. The thing that was now Padme moved slowly, languidly from the altar and stood. Blood still pooled between her legs, black as tar.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Where is my wife?”

 _Only death pays for life, young one._ The black blood followed her as she began to walk in long, flowing strides to the throne. She sat. _I am the Dark Side. I am Death, as you summoned me._ Her red, red lips poked their way into a smile. _My apprentice._

“No.” The word was firm. “No, I wanted to bring my wife back, my child-”

 _Your children._ The thing on the throne widened its smile. Its lips were blood. _You were to have twins._

For the first time in his life, Anakin felt truly horrified. He wanted to throw up, or throw something, or do _something_ but this creature felt strange in the Force; the Force seemed to flow _from_ her like gravity warped by a black hole, as if she were a fulcrum from which the Dark Side swayed. He found it impossible to stand; giant hands were pushing him down onto one knee, gentle hands, but firm.

But because he was Anakin Skywalker - now Darth Vader again - he had to try to resist. “I will never…” his tongue swallowed the words. “I am not an apprentice. I will never be an apprentice again,” he said.

 _You will._ The thing that was Padme seemed certain. _You served Obi-Wan for duty, Sidious for hate. You will serve me for love._

“Love.” If Vader’s throat wasn’t so dry, he might have spat. “I do not love anymore.” Suddenly he felt tired, so tired. “You took her from me.”

 _Liar._ The thing that was Padme hissed, and the pressure forcing him to his knees increased tenfold, pressing him on all floors, forcing a whine from his throat as his palms pressed into the stone tile. _You will not leave me here alone._

Vader looked up at his wife, or what remained of her. “You’re right,” he said. “I won’t leave her.”

 _No._ The pressure lifted. Vader took a long, grateful gasp of air. _You will stay here, and you will learn._

“Learn what?”

 _Everything._ _We will learn it all, and rule._

“You want to continue Sidious’ empire?”

 _No._ She paused. _There is more to life than empires, child. Empires crumble, and are reborn. You shall soon see._

“Yes.” Darth Vader knelt before the throne. “Master.”


End file.
